Jim Henry, once a dark-haired minority leader of the Tennessee House, is now a gray-headed candidate for governor. But while there may be a little snow on the roof, there’s still some fire in the furnace.
In front of a group of media hounds who’ve been itching for more drama in the governor’s race, the Kingston Republican this week accelerated the continued battle over Who Is The Most Emphatically Against an Income Tax, at the same time seizing on the apparent reality deficit among the leading candidates in the race, Republican Van Hilleary and Democrat Phil Bredesen, who think the state’s fiscal ugliness is a myth.
“Mr. Hilleary’s campaign, I regret to say, has evolved in recent weeks into a negative, pandering attempt to win an election without regard to the realities facing our state—with his only issue being who’s against an income tax more,” Henry said.
But Hilleary’s most “irresponsible” moment, Henry continued, came last week when he made his formal announcement about running for the Republican nomination. “When asked about how he will conduct his campaign to gain votes, he said, 'Whatever the voters are buying, that’s what I’m selling.’ ” Henry characterized that as “an incredible admission at a time when Tennessee needs mature, responsible leadership.”
Hilleary did, in fact, say that. But, Hilleary’s campaign insists, it won’t respond to Henry’s charge or engage in negative campaigning. Instead, campaign spokesman Frank Cagle tells the Scene in a priceless example of the kind of succinct intellectual dishonesty campaigns are known for: “We haven’t attacked him, except to say that he’s not a viable candidate.”
Continuing in a mitigating vein, Cagle says Henry is “certainly a fine man. We happen to think our campaign has the best chance of winning in November. We’ve tried to avoid any ugly scenes. We take [Henry’s comments] for what they’re worth.”
Of course, Henry—like Hilleary and Bredesen—doesn’t support an income tax either. But unlike those two, he thinks Tennessee is in a pickle and needs to do something. Of course, like Hilleary and Bredesen, he doesn’t want to be the one to do it. He supports a constitutional convention, with elected delegates to debate one issue and one issue alone—Tennessee’s tax structure.
“I think the income tax really has divided our state long enough,” Henry said. “Let’s get the income tax behind us. It’s divided us for 30 years.”
But before getting it completely behind us, Henry had this to say about Hilleary: “It’s kind of interesting to me how you can be in Congress eight years, never raise your voice about an income tax, which is the major source of how the feds get their money, then all of a sudden come down here to state government and be so violently opposed to it. That doesn’t make sense to me.”
Henry, of course, is doing what he has to do. And, actually, knowledgeable people within his party believe he has a decent shot at the GOP nomination, given his amiable personality and widespread disenchantment with Hilleary. When Bill Clinton was running for president, a national magazine wrote a story about the man, headlined “He’ll Do,” an overt nod to the fact that perhaps he wasn’t ideal. Hilleary is regarded by some even within his campaign as the “He’ll Do” candidate of the Tennessee governor’s race.
Henry challenged Hilleary to a series of debates. Given that the Hilleary campaign doesn’t regard Henry as a “viable candidate,” we’ll take that as a no.
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Who can blame Mike Whitaker for switching parties?
Whitaker is the Covington attorney who lost the 1998 Democratic gubernatorial nomination to John Jay Hooker. He announced last week that he’s running for a newly drawn state House district in West Tennessee that’s heavily Republican. Therefore, he’s now a Republican.
“I’ve been thinking about it a long time,” Whitaker tells the Scene. “Frankly, I didn’t have a lot of friends in the Democratic Party. I rattled some cages that maybe did or didn’t need rattling.”
He says he never felt comfortable in a party where “reproductive rights” have been valued and supported. “I’m a small-town boy who grew up going to a fundamentalist church.”
Beyond that, he says he’s more conservative fiscally than most Democrats, particularly with regard to the state’s insurance program for the indigent and working poor, and he opposes an income tax. He says that if that’s going to happen, it needs to be by constitutional convention.
He concedes, despite the ideological differences he’s had with the Democratic Party, that running as a Republican for a state House seat from a newly drawn GOP district—which he says represents “gerrymandering run amok”—is a little opportunistic. “But that’s only part of the reason I’m doing it,” he says.
To reach Liz, call her at 244-7989, ext. 406, or e-mail her at liz@nashvillescene.com.
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